Individual differences on the importance of virginity in Turkish society: An application on Turkish university students
Keywords:
Turkish society, Turkish traditions, virginity, university youth, Quest analysisAbstract
Virginity is an important issue in Turkish society because of the position of virginity in both Islam and Turkish traditions and customs. As a result of the societal perspective of virginity, Turkish youth see virginity before marriage as an important judgmental value, especially for women. However, it is also observed that the ideas and views of Turkish youth are changing over time and with the influence of personal circumstances. The purpose of this study is to learn the ideas of Turkish youth about the importance of virginity and to depict individual differences by conducting a survey on students of the Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences of Eskisehir Osmangazi University. The participants were 664 university students attending different departments of the faculty in 2011-2012 academic year. A questionnaire including one dependent variable as the importance of virginity before marriage and sixteen independent variables was administered to students. QUEST analysis was applied to depict the research findings on a decision tree for more visual illustration. As a result of the analysis the most effective factor on the dependent variable was found students’ customs and usage. For the 65.38% of male students virginity is very important before marriage, for whom the customs and usage are important and who use alcohol and attend the third and fourth class, but for the 64.71% of the female students virginity is not important before marriage. The results of the analysis also showed that male and female individuals in Turkish society think in opposite ways about the importance of virginity before marriage.
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